Friday, June 6, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Regionalists in Russia Must Back Kyiv against the Kremlin, Site Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 6 – Vladimir Putin
has adopted the rhetoric of national self-determination and federalism in
Ukraine, but a leading Russian regionalist site says that this is “hypocrisy
and a farce” which should deceive no one and especially not regionalists and
federalists in Russia because it is only “a cover for an aggressive imperial
policy.”

“Today,” Ingria.info says, “the
Ukrainian army is fighting not only for the freedom if its own Motherland but
also for the freedom of all Russian lands.”Those opposing Kyiv “are not regionalists or freedom fighter but rather
Chechen militants, mercenaries and backers of the rebirth of the totalitarian
Soviet empire” (ingria.info/articles/934-2014-06-04-23-01-49).

The regionalist site, which unites
regionalists and federalists in St. Petersburg and the northwestern portion of
the Russian Federation, says that “the victory of anti-imperial, anti-Moscow
forces in Ukraine will deprive the Kremlin regime of a significant portion of
its resources, be an example for Russians ... and speed up [their] liberation.”

Consequently, those who “want to
live in a European community of free peoples and not in a Eurasian empire under
the patronage of China” must not fall for “Kremlin propaganda” and conclude
that opposing Ukraine is a form of “’patriotism.’”Moscow is not only cutting Russia off from
Europe but handing control over Russian territories to China.

The regionalist site suggests that
Russians should answer the following question “honestly: Do you want to live in
North Korea?I yes, then go, everything
is ready for you: ration cards, concentration camps and the deification of ‘wise
leaders.’” If not, then Russians must answer with “a firm ‘no’” and “not
participate” in Russia’s crimes against Ukraine “by their approval.”

This declaration reflects the fact
that some Russians have in fact been deceived by the Kremlin and believe that
Vladimir Putin’s support for decentralization and federalism in Ukraine will
help them in their promotion of similar values within the Russian Federation, a
trend Ingria.info noted a few days ago (ingria.info/articles/932-2014-06-03-11-15-42).

There is no reason for anyone to
believe that, the portal says. Moscow seized Crimea and is backing the
secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk not because it supports these values but
rather for economic gains, including access to oil and gas reserves on the
Black Sea floor in the former and political ones such as weakening Ukrainian
democracy and Western ties in the latter.

“The self-proclaimed republics of
the south east of Ukraine are not a manifestation of local regionalism and
self-consciousness,” Ingria.info says. They are “from beginning to enda Moscow
project,” controlled by Russian citizens Moscow has sent in and covered
Potemkin Village-style by powerless local people in public positions.

There is no “regionalist
self-consciousness” involved, and any “consciousness” that does exist there is “Soviet
and has as its final goal not regionalism but the restoration of the USSR.”Moscow doesn’t need or care about the people
there. It only wants to use them in order to expand its power by excluding
Western influence.

Consequently, those who believe in
regionalism, federalism and freedom, the portal says, must recognize that “’the
separatists’ of South Osetia, Abkhazia, the Donetsk Peoples Republic and the
Luhansk Peoples Republic are not allies of regionalism but its most evil
enemies,” people who are providing backing or “the imperial ambitions of the Kremlin
regime.”